Across Oliver's Desk 

Dear Parents & Carers,

REMOTE LEARNING

I would like to thank our community for the support we received after the state went into lockdown. We really do have an incredible, supportive community. If we do go into another lockdown, (touch wood) we will the next time go straight into online learning. Obviously I hope that doesn’t happen as we all know the best place for our children is to be at school doing face to face learning.

VISIT BY JAMES MERLINO, MINISTER OF EDUCATION

It was an honour to have the minister visit our school last week. He came to speak to our children and our staff in regards to the 10.5 million dollar investment the state is making in capital works at our school. He toured the school and was really impressed with the learning that was happening and the orderly learning environment. I received a beautiful email after the visit outlining the terrific job the school is doing.

The best session was a Q & A session he had with our kids; who delighted everyone in the room with their smiles, humour, positivity and intelligence. They had lots of ideas for what should be built; a new science room, extension to the hall, bigger classrooms, undercover roof for the basketball courts etc. My favourite however, was Molly Benson who said to the minister, ‘The teachers need bigger offices because some of them don’t even have them and that isn’t fair!’ Charlotte Sykes had many wonderful answers to the minister’s questions and was calling him by his first name after about 5 seconds, which he loved. As always I was so proud of our gorgeous children.

I must thank the minister for being a great friend to our school and for having such an interest in our school during my time as principal. 

CAR PARK

Unless you enrol your child in a very small school the reality is you’re going to be annoyed at the lack of parking. Although our school was built for over 400 students in 1984, most children in the 80’s walked to school. Today most students are driven to school and the Education Department and the local council have not planned ahead well enough for car parking. We began negotiations with the Shire of Yarra Ranges in 2019 about extending our car park but I would imagine that it will be quite a while before we see any construction work beginning. At this stage I am unsure if the money the minister has announced for our capital works includes a carpark upgrade.

The best we can do is make sure that our kiss and drop keeps moving so that parents are not waiting in line for too long.

Below are some rules parents need to follow when parking or using the Kiss & Drop

UNIFORM

We are getting closer and closer to 100% of our students in full school uniform. I’ve had a number of parents comment positively to me about the improvement in our uniform. Last week our grade six students were able to get their special tops, this is unusual and normally happens much later in the term. A big well done to our business manager Natalie Potter who made it happen. 

Thank you again for your support of the school’s uniform policy, we really look smart as a school when everyone is on board.

OUR FLICK

Our wonderful Assistant Principal will be on leave for the rest of this term. While she is on leave Rachel Ward will be the Acting Assistant Principal. We welcome Rachel to the role and wish her all the best while filling Flick’s large shoes.

COMMUNICATION WITH THE SCHOOL

Every year we seem to have trouble with social media, particularly Facebook, because someone posts something that is inaccurate or completely untrue. I think at this time of the year I would like to remind all parents that our school is totally committed to your child’s education. We have fantastic intelligent, caring teachers and teacher aides that only want the best for your child. Building a strong partnership between parents and teachers is very important. If you have any questions or even if you are annoyed about something, please come to the school and tell us so that we can deal with the matter quickly, communicating directly with your child’s teacher or with Rachel or myself.  Most days I am at the kiss and drop in the morning and the afternoon. I’m always happy to answer questions you might have.

PREP LAND

I do love my visits each day to our Prep Land, you can see by the pictures just how hard they are already working and how much they love their school! 

PREP ENROLMENTS FOR 2022

As our school gets closer to its capacity, we are accepting less students from outside our school zone. Parents that live in our Woori Yallock school zone will always be offered a place and parents with siblings already at the school will also be offered a place.  Parents that would like a place at our school but are outside our zone will now have to put in their enrolment paper work, then in August the school will look at how many places are available and then offer places in line with the department’s placement policy. 

Our schools popularity is due to the fantastic job our teachers are doing in the classroom and the learning opportunities we provide all our students. The good name of the school in the education world is something we should be very proud of.

We are running tours for perspective parents this term.

Let’s hope next week is back to normal!

And remember when life gets a little difficult escape to the wonderful world of a book! The best thing about lockdowns is that you get to read more and catch up on binge TV series watching!

Oliver Thockloth

Principal